Somewhere Between Here and the Stars
by triggersaurus
Summary: r+r much appreciated - a mission with Medicins Sans Frontiers has implications


Somewhere Between Here And The Stars

Chapter One: Mixed Emotions

Note: Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, is an international organisation which provides medical aid, most frequently in the form of trained doctors and nurses who volunteer. These people travel to all areas of the world and work in some of the poorest countries in the world, free of charge. For more information, see the MSF website. I have tried to remain as true to this cause in the story as possible, but as an average citizen of the UK I can't be sure that everything is correct. If you find any glaring errors that could be considered offensive, please email me.

----------------

Doug rolled over as the phone ran, and stuffed his head under the pillow. The answer machine could pick up for him, no-one in their right mind should ring at 5.30 in the morning and expect an answer. The machine clicked on.  
"This is Dr. Ross, leave a you-know-what you-know-when." The tone pealed out, and Doug thought fuzzily that he should really change the lame message.  
"Dr. Ross, if you're there please pick up. It's Bethanie at MSF, your forms finally came through."  
Doug pulled his head out from under the pillow and reached for the receiver.  
"Hello?"

------

Imagine his surprise when he saw Carol wandering around the side of the house that afternoon, just casually turning up like she'd always been there. How could he not play up to that, joining in the game as if it was all completely normal. Inside he was bursting with joy but he wouldn't let it show just so he could prolong the moment. And it wasn't until that night, his arms wrapped warmly around her to just be certain it was all true, he told her.  
"Carol, I need to talk to you. Properly talk."  
"Mmm, Doug. Can't we leave that for some other time?"  
"No, we can't. I have to tell you this because I have to leave on Thursday."  
"What?" Carol sat up and moved out of his arms, turning on the couch to face him. "Leave?"  
"You know that I've been working with Medicins Sans Frontiers. This morning, my application to be an on-call doctor came through. On Thursday I'm flying out to Africa. It's my first mission, I'll be out there for about 3 months..."  
Carol left the couch and went to look out of the large portrait windows. She felt like something inside her had just shattered. The dream. That feeling that she was home, happy for the first time in a year and everything was just right. And now...this. Doug was going away for 3 months and it was just going to be the same again, the same as when he hadn't been there. Struggling with the twins just to be able to leave the house, struggling to get up herself every morning, pretending nothing was wrong. She couldn't do all that again, she couldn't. A single tear ran down her cheek as she looked out over the dark waters, little lights glinting in the distance from other houses.  
"Carol. I want you to stay here. I want you and the girls to be a family with me. If I had known...I can't turn the mission down now. But I love you, and I love my daughters. Please be here when I get back."  
She let her chin fall to her chest, feeling more tears behind her eyes as she listened to Doug. He was behind her, close, she could feel the heat from him, the despondance with it. How could she do what he asked? On top of everything she would be in a new place, surrounded by strangers, no job, no friends. Her shoulders convulsed for a moment, as she convinced herself not to go to pieces, not here right in front of him.   
Doug reached forward and put one hand very gently on her shoulder. He hated this, hated his job now. This morning he had been so excited, almost childishly so, making all the arrangements for his departure and tidying the house. That was why he'd been in the boat, throwing the tarp over so it didn't rot while he was gone. But now it was different. He'd suddenly become someone with responsibilities for three other people, he wanted to stay here and play with his children, stay here and love Carol. Heavens, he'd smashed her hopes to pieces so many times before. He felt her shoulder shake underneath his palm, and knew that she was holding back. It wasn't fair. Not on her, not on the girls, not on him, that this had to happen now.   
  
------  
  
They both flew out of Seattle on Thursday night, headed to different destinations. Carol was flying back to Chicago, to collect the twins, to sort out all the documentation and the other preparations that needed to be made for the move. Doug was flying to New York, transferring to a flight direct to Abidjan on the Ivory Coast. There he would be flown on a small, private jet to Liberia to begin his mission.   
  
------  
  
Carol's plane touched down on Chicago turf at 4.12am. She stood in the queue of people wating to disembark the plane and looked out of a window into the dim morning light. Only 3 days had past, but it felt like a lifetime. It had taken her one of those three precious days to come to terms with Doug's new career and to make the decision that she would stay in Seattle, with the girls. Although she was angry and hurt, and above all disappointed, she knew inside her that she would wait forever for Doug, and that while those first 3 months would be hard, she could make it.   
  
Finally leaving the airport, Carol hailed a cab and returned to the house. Unlocking the door, once she had found the keys, she stepped inside and stood for a moment on the threshold. There was so much to do. Would she sell the house? Rent it out? How would she transport all the...the things that she had, and the two babies had, to the other side of the country? What was she going to do about a job? And she'd have to quit County properly, which would take time and paperwork. She closed the door behind her and went to perch on the edge of the armchair. Strange, it felt like she should be polite here now, restrained more. Maybe because now all she felt here was the ache of holding back, the past year of being self-contained. She sat there for some time, looking around at the place that had meant so much to her - the freedom, love and hard work it represented. The huge step in her life that it symbolised. And yet now she had this feeling, this strange, undescribable feeling, that she wanted to say goodbye to it, that she neeed to move on but as if she didn't want to go. At the same time.   
  
Sighing perceptively, she picked herself up and checked her watch. She wanted the girls. She didn't want to start anything until she had them back here. Then she would go and see Mark, and Kerry, and explain.   
  
------  
  
Doug's plane touched down at 3.44pm local time, but by his body clock it was 3.44am. He'd barely slept on the plane, there was so much to think about, and besides that he was seated next to his mentor for the next 3 months. Dr. Adam Simons, a specialist in tropical medicine from San Diego, was tall, slim, very tanned and very calm. He was so reserved and collected, Doug felt like he might have a panic attack just from watching his careful selection of still mineral water, and the slow and precise way he unwrapped the plastic dessert. Still, there was something likable about the experienced doctor. This was his sixth mission, he explained to Doug. He'd been to Ethopia, Kazakhstan, Croatia, the Congo, and Liberia once before, and this was possibly his last mission for a while so he could write a series of research papers. Doug was impressed, worried for a moment that he had been assigned to someone so dedicated that he wouldn't be able to keep up. His relief was palpable when Adam leant into the aisle and asked if they could possibly lose the chick-flick and watch the football instead.  
  
They were met at the tiny airport by the regional co-ordinator for MSF. She was a petite woman, wearing khaki pants and a t-shirt, and she smiled at the two doctors as they walked across the rough tarmac towards her.  
"Adam. It's great to have you back." They hugged.   
"Good to be back, Cassandra. You're looking good."   
"Thank you. It's the heat, you sweat off everything you eat, and more." She grinned broadly and then looked at Doug. "You must be Doug Ross?"  
"Yeah. Hi." He shook hands with her, smiling but feeling his jeans sticking to the backs of his legs, and thinking that he shouldn't have worn black.   
All three of them started in a procession to the small building that served as the airport, with Cassandra leading.   
"We'll go to the office first, get you guys kitted out with everything and then you can settle into your room. Tomorrow Solomon will drive you out to your field clinic and the real work will start."  
Doug nodded mutely. Walking beside him, Adam started a discussion with their leader about the current situation of the country, and although Doug was positive he should be taking in all the information, his brain didn't want to co-operate.   
  
It was another hour and a half later before he finally crashed out on a bunk in a room above what was meant to be the headquarters. He'd almost missed it when they first got there, as it was one of many small, terraced shop fronts in the small town that was the capital of Liberia. Standing by a desk, he'd been handed a large cooler box, a full backpack, two plastic bags, and a water flask that he recognised dimly as something that explorers on the Discovery Channel wore. Then a thin man with small round wire-rimmed glasses had shown them upstairs to the little box room that was stuffed full with just one set of bunk beds. No thoughts passed through Doug's mind in the time it took him to lose his shirt and pants and collapse onto the lower bunk. Above him, even Adam had become less conversant and they were both asleep within minutes.  
  
------  
  
Carol walked through the doors of the ER, the twins in a double stroller in front of her. She was well aware that this wasn't going to be easy, and perhaps having the girls around would distract some of the attention from her. Sure enough, within a few moments of her entrance there were at least 3 people crouched around the two babies.   
"Carol!"  
"Hi Mark."  
He stood behind the admit desk, wiping a name off the board before he came around to see her. "What happened?" He said it with slight concern in his voice - she looked tired, and he hadn't seen or heard from her since she ran out of the ER nearly a week ago.  
"It's a long story. Do you have a minute?"  
"Sure. Let me just get Luka to cover a patient. Go into the lounge, we can talk in there, I'll be in in a moment."  
"Thanks."   
She tried to disentangle the twins from their admirers, and eventually let Randi push them behind the desk so everyone could see them while she went into the lounge. Startled for a moment to see her locker - she already felt like she'd left - she went across to it and turned the dial. The door came open and she glanced at the contents. Box of Kleenex, hospital ID tag, spare set of scrubs, an old carrier bag containing lunch from god knows when. A baby bottle sat near the rear, and her stethoscope. Postcards from Europe, Florida and Texas were stuck to the inside door, and a photo of the girls. The lounge door opened behind her as she was thinking about dumping all the stuff out into her bag.  
"So, tell me what's going on with you, Carol." He sounded friendly, and poured himself some espresso. "Coffee?"  
"Thanks." He brought the two mugs to the table where they both sat down, her locker now closed. Mark sipped, looking at her with raised eyebrows of question.  
"I'm leaving, Mark. I want to quit County." There, she'd said it. Not exactly how she'd planned, but never mind. His mouth fell open a little, searching for words. "I know I shouldn't have run out of here last week, I'm so sorry about that. I went to see Doug."  
Mark'd mouth curved slightly into a smile at the corners, and he was cut off before he could say anything. "We're going to go out to Seattle and live with him, Mark. Me and the twins. I know this is sudden, for you. But this last year has been so hard..." She took a breath, "...and I want to thank you for being there for me. You've been my best friend this year, and for all the years I've worked here. I don't deserve you. But I have to do this. I have to be with Doug."  
He gazed down at the table for a while as she stopped talking, and rasied his head again after she was silent for a few moments.   
"Carol. I am so happy for you. And Doug. And the girls. This is great." He smiled at her, genuinely but with a touch of sadness. "But I am really going to miss you. All of you."  
"I know." Carol agreed with a smile of her own, her hands wrapped around the warm coffee mug. Mark laid one of his own hands across hers, trying to express everything he felt with the one touch. She knew.   
  
------  
  
The field clinic already had a queue of people waiting outside at 8am when Drs. Simons and Ross arrived. The local who drove them there in an open topped jeep helped them unload the supplies, both medical and personal, and pointed them in the direction of the rear entrace for staff. He drove off again, leaving dust hanging in the air from the track that served as a road up to the small but modern building. Doug carried the last large cooler box through from the decking and put it down on the pale linolieum floor inside, enjoying the cooler breeze generated by a celing fan. He looked about him. It was very small, but everything was clean, there were supply drawers and cupboards everywhere, marked with black marker pen so the contents were easily established. He cracked a door open and saw an additional room with a gurney, screen and sink. The exam room. Adam came in carrying their two personal backpacks, and stood directly under the fan letting the air blow across the top of his head.  
"Mmm. That's better. 98 they say it is today. It should get up to about 110 within the week."  
"110?"  
"Yeah. That's when we stop enjoying the fan and start dreaming of air conditioning." He put the backpacks down on the floor by a cupboard marked 'dressings', and went to the front of the room. Doug rubbed the back of his head, contemplating 110 degrees, and closed the exam room door again.  
"So how does this work? We split up and take one person at a time?"  
"Yeah, we can do it that way if you want. But we have to wait for the interpreter to get here. I can only speak a little French, and a lot of these people will speak a sort of creole."  
"Ah, okay. And when does the translator person turn up?"  
"Should be anytime now. In the meantime, it gives us a chance to get set up, unpack a bit. Our rooms are upstairs, I went and had a look. There's a kitchen too."  
"I'm hoping you're a good cook because I can just about stretch to mac and cheese."  
Adam grinned as he emptied a container of sterile drapes into a drawer. "But that's MY specialty!"  
"And I'm guessing the nearest pizza joint is some way away?"  
"Think they deliever?"  
"Only by chopper. And your order has to be over a grand."  
Doug dumped fifteen suture kits into a tray and picked out a key from the cooler.  
"What's this for?"  
"The meds cabinet. It's out at the back. People still have addictions out here, you have to be careful with some of the drugs."  
"Yeah...it's just like an ER really, I guess."  
"Pretty much. That's your specialty though isn't it, emergency medicine?"  
"Yeah, emergency and peds. I'm a pediatrcian really, but I worked in an ER for about 10 years."  
"In Chicago, right? I know you told me most of this yesterday but I lost a lot of brain cells through lack of sleep."  
"Yeah." Doug nodded, wiping the sweat on his hands off on his jeans. "Actually, this place reminds me of when the air conditioning broke down during a heat wave in the ER."  
"Damn. That can't have been nice."  
"Wasn't."  
They continued to unpack, chat, and prepare themselves for the next 3 months.  
  
------  
  
Carol emerged from a long talk with both Mark and Kerry, and went towards the admit desk to use a phone - she had to schedule a meeting with Romano and other members of the hospital board to discuss her contract and possible transfer. She stopped abruptly when she saw Tess in the arms of Luka. He was talking to her, leaning against the edge of the counter, while Haleh played with Kate still in her stroller seat. Mixed emotions rushed across Carol's eyes and through her mind. All her feelings for Luka, all her feelings for Doug, all her morals surrounding her children. For an instant she realised she was going to regret the fact that the twins would never be able to remember the gentle giant who had affected their lives in so many ways. And she regretted her desertion of him, just from the look of pain in his eyes as he gazed up at her and passed the infant back. She couldn't find the words as she had been able to before, she felt stupid. That long speech she'd given him before she ran out of his life, and now here she was, back again only a week later. Brushing a loose curl out of her face, she took Tess back and smiled sadly at Luka. He nodded, avoiding eye contact and left with a chart, his head bowed over it.   
"Can I use the phone?"  
"Of course, Carol you don't have to ask." Haleh pointed at a free telephone on the counter. "You going to tell us what's going on?"  
Carol punched in the relevant extension, balancing the phone between her chin and shoulder. Smiling faintly, she said "I'm leaving. We're going out to Seattle." She watched Haleh's eyebrows rise to the heavens as someone picked up on the other end of the phone. It was some minutes later, a meeting scheduled for noon the next day, that Carol finally claimed back her children. Looking around at the assembled, questioning faces, she took a breath in and cleared her throat. With a smile, she began, "I know you're all wondering what's going on. I'm sorry if this is sudden, but I'm leaving. Leaving County, leaving Chicago. I'm taking the twins to Seattle, we're going to go and live with Doug." She was interrupted by Chuny.  
"Aww! Oh, Carol, I'm so happy for you, and Doug!" She hugged her. Carol smiled and hugged back, pulling away after a few seconds.  
"I'm not done. I just...well, this is one of the biggest things I've ever done in my life. And I've been thinking about it for some time now. But I am going to miss you all so much. You're like my extended family, I love you all." She was engulfed again, this time by Lily. Giving up on her speech, she let everyone crowd around, pass on their sentiments and good wishes, hug her some more. Tears dampened the corners of her eyes but didn't spill over. Once more she could feel deep inside that her actions were right, absolutely perfect for her. And although it hurt, leaving all these people she'd known as so much more than co-workers, and uprooting to a totally new community, there was a prevailing sense of calmness, and being settled, that stood her upright and sent her on her way.  
  
------  
  
Doug stood outside in the oppressive heat, and carefully lifted the shirt of the young boy. He had a rash all down his chest, arms and legs, and Doug thought he might be running a fever although it was hard to tell as the sweat soaked through his own shirt. He lowered the shirt and turned to his interpreter.  
"Tell her that her son probably has measles and he'll need to stay longer so we can examine him some more."  
She nodded and turned to the woman who stood by the little boy, and spoke rapidly. The woman nodded mutely and drifted in the direction of the next queue as pointed out, set aside for those most in need of treatment. Doug wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his t-shirt and stopped for a moment to take a drink of water. He'd been given the standard acclimatisation talk that morning and knew that he had to drink something like 8 litres a day to prevent dehydration. As he drank, he glanced down the line of people. He knew he was essentially doing the job of an effective triage nurse, sorting people with mild, easily curable conditions from those with more urgent problems, and those who may well need to be hospitalised. He wore what he considered to be an army belt, but filled with meds for the cases that could be treated on the spot, bandages for flesh wounds, rehydration tablets and immunisation pills. It was front line medicine, and despite the heat and the insects and the language barrier, he felt like he was doing just a good a job as he had done in the ER in Chicago well over a year ago. An old woman, her face crumpled with age, had shown him her daughter and explained the fainting spells and headaches. When he gave her a pack of iron tablets and told her she would be fine, the old woman threw her tired, scrawny arms around him and said, through the translator, that she had believed her daughter was going to die. Only his first day, and yet he felt like he'd made so much difference.   
  
That evening, as he wiped down the exam room with a disenfectant cloth, Adam came in and sat down at the gurney. He dropped a couple of paper bags on the top and gestured to the second stool.  
"Dinner time."  
Doug looked up and ticked his head to one said as he took the offered seat. "You sure we should eat in here?"  
"It's okay. You wiped it all down, as long as we don't get into a food fight or anything then all we have to do is put a new roll of paper over the gurney."  
Doug reached into the paper bag and pulled out a plastic container of boiled rice, shortly followed by a carton of something...it was written in French but had pictues of oranges and mangoes on the front. He held it up and looked questioningly at his fellow doctor.  
"It's a local specialty. Put it over the rice, it's quite amazing. I've been craving it since I left here three years ago."  
Doug tipped the thick contents into the rice container and mixed it all about. He took a mouthful with a plastic fork.  
"That IS good!"  
"Mmhmm." They ate mostly in silence, drinking water in between mouthfuls.   
"So tell me about this place." Doug scraped up the last bits.  
"The clinic?"  
"No, Liberia. I read all the stuff in the package, but it doesn't really-"  
"Relate to our work? Yeah, I know."   
Doug nodded, drinking some more.  
"Okay, well Liberia's basically a typical third world nation, has a few political problems verging on civil war but nothing like the extent of Sierra Leone, or Uganda. The people speak a French creole, as you know. The biggest medical problem is HIV and AIDS, then tropical illnesses like Malaria. Around conflict areas there's sometimes problems with landmines, which are quite horrific as you can imagine. When I was here before I was stationed further East and I saw quite a few landmine victims - kids with their legs blown off, farm workers missing half their face."  
"But I thought that campaigns to clear the mines up had helped all that?"  
"I don't know. I suppose it must have done to some extent, but it depends on the area, the type of mines, and how easy they are to find. Also the press, you know, they pick up on the campaigns, publicise them for a bit until they go out of fashion, the funding disappears and you've still got half a million mines in the ground." He shrugged and tossed the rice carton into the bin. "He scores!" he said, under his breath. "Well, I'm going to crash."  
"Okay." Doug dumped his own garbage in the can, and pulled a new paper towel over the gurney. Adam headed for the door, rubbing the small of his back and stretching.  
"Adam? Is there a phone around here?"  
"Uh, yeah, there's one on the back of the building. You calling home?"  
"Yeah."  
"Use the phone card. It's cheaper for international calls, and besides it's all on the organisation."  
"Alright. And this card would be where..?"  
"In that bag of stuff with your t shirt and scrip pad."  
"Thanks."  
"No problem. See you tomorrow."  
Doug nodded.

* * *

© Triggersaurus 2001


End file.
